Abu l-Faraj al-Isfahani

Abu al-Faraj Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Isfahani, author of "Kitab al-Aghani". ¹

Haji Khalifa relates from al-Muhallabi that he compiled the book over fifty years, and that in his lifetime he wrote it out in his own hand only once. ¹

He died in 356 AH; the Gregorian conversion is derived. ¹

• His birth, his Umayyad lineage and his life need an additional source.

The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.) entry printed under the clipped heading "AL-KURASHI" describes the author of the Kitab al-Aghani. He was born in Isfahan in 284/897 and was a descendant of Quraysh, more exactly of the Marwanid branch of the Umayyads, yet he was a Shi'ite. He lived mostly in Baghdad under the Buyids, especially the vizier al-Muhallabi, and was also welcomed at the Hamdanid court of Sayf al-Dawla in Aleppo. He died in Baghdad on 14 Dhu l-Hijja 356/20 November 967. The article says he worked on the Aghani for fifty years. He arranged the songs chosen for Harun al-Rashid, and added the lives of the poets and the melodies, along with much on the Arab tribes and the court life of the Umayyads and 'Abbasids. ²